Angels Left to Wonder

The Angels keep Mike Holtz on the payroll for one reason: When it’s getting late in the game and the other guys have a left-handed hitter striding to the plate, Holtz is the antidote.

With the game on the line Thursday night, Manager Mike Scioscia kept his left-handed specialist in the bullpen. Holtz watched as two left-handed hitters had key singles in a four-run eighth inning, lifting the Boston Red Sox to a 7-6 victory over the Angels before 27,377 at Edison Field.

As August losses go, this one was pretty devastating. The Angels blew a two-run lead with six outs to go, and they blew a chance to close within two games of Boston and five games of the Oakland Athletics in the wild-card race. The Angels also lost a series for the first time this month.

However, they did not go quietly. In the ninth inning, down 7-5 against Boston closer Ugueth Urbina, they scored one run and advanced the tying run to third base before Urbina struck out Tim Salmon to end the game.

The Angels did clear space in their record book for catcher Bengie Molina, who had three singles and a double to extend his streak of consecutive hits to nine. That sets a franchise record; four players shared the old mark of eight consecutive hits. Molina also became the first Angel to record consecutive four-for-four games since Salmon did it seven years ago.

Reliever Ben Weber already had finished the sixth inning and completed the seventh when the Angels brought him back to the mound for the eighth. With a 5-3 lead, the Angels wanted three more outs from Weber and then three from closer Troy Percival.

Weber never made it out of the inning, and Percival never made it into the game. Neither did Holtz, who had been warming up earlier.

Nomar Garciparra singled to start the eighth inning, bringing cleanup hitter Carl Everett to the plate representing the tying run. Everett is hitting .303 against right-handers and .183 against left-handers, but Scioscia stayed with Weber.

Everett singled, and so did Dante Bichette, loading the bases with none out. Next up: Troy O’Leary, hitting .289 against right-handers and .160 against left-handers. Again, Scioscia stayed with Weber.

O’Leary singled home two runs, tying the score at 5-5. Scioscia finally yanked Weber in favor of another right-hander, Al Levine. That made sense, with three right-handed hitters in line, but the Red Sox scored the decisive runs--on a single by Chris Stynes and a sacrifice fly by Doug Mirabelli--before the Angels escaped the inning.

The evening was a largely successful one for the Angels’ David Eckstein. He reached base three times and drove in two runs against the Red Sox, who placed him on waivers this time last year.

Eckstein is at his best when he is a pest, and he was quite a nuisance Thursday. He walked to start the first inning, advancing to third base on a single by Darin Erstad and scoring on a double by Troy Glaus.

In the second inning, Eckstein singled home Shawn Wooten. In the fourth, Eckstein singled home Molina, after Molina had doubled home Scott Spiezio.

Angel starter Pat Rapp, pitching against one of his five former employers, carried a one-hit shutout and a 4-0 lead into the fifth inning.

The Red Sox rallied for three runs, two of which should have been charged to second baseman Benji Gil. After O’Leary and Shea Hillenbrand opened the inning with consecutive singles, Stynes grounded to Eckstein at shortstop. Gil took the feed from Eckstein but missed tagging the base--or coming even close, for that matter--for an error that loaded the bases for the Red Sox.

Rapp did not help himself by walking home a run and, two pitches later, unleashing a wild pitch that scored another run. But he recovered to retire the next three batters, with Boston scoring a third run on a sacrifice fly. Of the three runs, two were unearned.

The Boston uprising in the eighth inning deprived Rapp of the decision, which is nothing new. In eight starts since the All-Star break, Rapp has won two, lost one and received no decision in five.